Someone else's place
by MaryJane Weasley
Summary: You can't change the past. No matter how much you want to. How Draco and Ginny were brought together during the war.


_I remember the first time I saw you._

_I didn't love you then._

_I didn't even like you._

_Then something changed. _

_Perhaps it was the first time I saw your wonderful smile._

_Or maybe the time you yelled at me._

_Not very romantic, I know, but there was something about it that made you extremely attractive in that moment._

_I don't remember exactly when it changed, all I know is that it did. _

_I started liking you, and before I knew it I was head over heels in love._

_Who would have thought that I, a big bad evil Slytherin, could feel butterflies in my stomach, or get tongue-tied when being around you?_

_Not me, that's for sure._

_I know I'm only wishing when I think you might be feeling the same way as I do. _

_But hey, a guy can dream can't he?_

_After all,_

_Roses are red, violets are blue, _

_If a Slytherin loves a Gryffindor, why can't she love him too?_

------------

_She's standing over there, long red hair falling down her back. Oh how I love her hair! The way it curls so nicely and catches the rays of the sun giving it that amazing shine. The deep shade of red is almost too perfect to be true. A strand of hair has fallen in her face, in front of her eyes. Oh how I long to reach out and tuck it behind her ear. _

_But it isn't my place to do that. _

_It's someone else's._

--------------

_She's sitting over there, sun shining in her face. Oh, how I love her face. Everything from her dark brown eyes down to the tiny freckles sprinkled over her nose. Her full red lips just begging to be kissed and her slightly pink cheeks just pleading to be stroked. All of it I love and wish to touch. I see the intense gaze in her eyes. Oh, how I wish that gaze was directed at me. _

_But it isn't my place to be lovingly gazed at. _

_It's someone else's._

-------------

_She's laying over there, tears in her eyes. Her long wonderful hair is a mess. Her lovely eyes are puffed from so much crying. Still, she is as beautiful as ever. Her entire body is shaking and trembling. Nothing coherent comes out of her mouth, just sobs and choked words. She is wrapped in a pair of warm, strong arms, pressed against a slim chest so alike my own. Oh, how I wish it was my embrace she was safe in. _

_But it isn't my place to comfort. _

_It's someone else's._

-------

_I was eleven the first time I saw her. She was ten. At that time she was just a little child to me. Someone else's little sister. She blushed when I opened my mouth. I didn't think twice about it then. Maybe I should have. Maybe she would have been mine to hold, kiss and comfort if I had acted earlier. _

_I think it was around my fifth year things changed. She had a boyfriend then, I remember. Scrawny little brat he was. Maybe it could have been me even then. _

_In my sixth year she had moved on. Another guy straight after the first. If that other guy only had been me. _

_My fifth year was also the year she was accepted to the Quidditch team. Too bad I wasn't playing then. Oh how I would have loved to be up in the air with her. Flying around on a broom, wind blowing in her wonderful hair and against her beautiful face. She would laugh. I would laugh too. We would be happy. Would have been. _

_Then came the war. The real war. Alliances changed quicker than a pair of socks after Quidditch practice. Many Slytherins joined the Light side. Most because they realised that if they didn't they would lose. Others because they were persuaded to. _

-------

"Why I am here? I don't want to be here and you bloody well know that!" he yelled.

"You are here because you have nowhere else to be," she responded calmly for what felt like the billionth time. "If I had left you out there in the woods you would have starved to death." He was about to protest but Ginny swiftly cut him off. "And if by some miracle you would have survived one more day without food, someone else might have found you and killed you before they'd given you a chance to defend yourself. Now sit here quietly while I get you some food."

She stomped out of the room and slammed the door a bit harder than necessary. She didn't mean to be such a typical redhead but that boy, or man she should say, just drove her completely mad.

Why had she even saved him in the first place?

-----------

_It's all due to Ginny. If she hadn't found him in the woods all alone, he wouldn't be here now. He wouldn't stand up there with the huge grin on his face. If she hadn't found him alone and injured in the forest during one of her missions for the Order it wouldn't have been him. It would have been me. Could have been__._

-------

Somehow she had managed to convince the Order that he had agreed to cooperate. The only difficult part left was to convince _him_ that he actually had to.

"Give me one single reason why I would want to help you in this war," he said, arms folded stubbornly over his chest.

"Because I saved your life and therefore you owe me," she stated simply.

He let out an empty laugh. "I stand in debt to no one. I didn't want to be saved so you can in no way claim that you did me a favour," he said with a satisfied smirk.

Ginny closed her eyes and slowly counted to ten. Why did she keep putting up with him? She could have just told the Order that he had attacked her and forced her to bring him here and they would have gotten rid of him. Why did she keep throwing herself into these pointless arguments?

----------

_When did she fall for him? Was it during all those long nights out in the forest making their way back to the Headquarters? Or was it after that, in the actual house? And if it was in the house, how come nobody noticed and stopped it? Why did they all let this happen? _

_The answer is that they didn't have time. No one had the time to worry about anything but his or her own business. Everybody was busy, running around, fixing things, getting things. No one noticed the bond that slowly formed between them. The bond that can only be formed between two people in the same position. The position of not being allowed to do anything. _

--------

"Here's the deal," she said as she walked into the room.

He looked up curiously from the book currently in his lap. She hadn't been in his room for a long time. She stopped visiting some time after their thirty-eleventh fight about him being stuck there.

"I feel just as lonely and useless as you do. Everybody else is doing stuff to make this war end while I'm stuck in a rotting old house with no one. Until you came that is."

He raised his eyebrow curiously. She took it as a sign to continue.

That was the first night out of many that they sat in his room talking about everything and nothing.

---------

_Ginny wasn't allowed to fight. During her time in the Order she was only sent on one mission. The one that brought/i him ithere. After that she was pretty much a lonely prisoner in her own house. Except it wasn't her own. And she wasn't lonely. She had him. Him and his guitar._

_Well, it wasn't his guitar, it was the house's. But since the house practically belonged to him you could say the guitar was his too. I was told that they used to sit up until late at night, strumming on the guitar. He would play, she would sing. _

_What amazes me is how he knew how to play. It's not exactly like he had any parents around to teach him. He must have learnt by himself. How unfair. _

-----

"I found something that might cheer you up," she announced one day when entering his room.

"I doubt it," he drawled.

"Look!" From behind her back she pulled out an acoustic guitar. It wasn't anywhere near new but all the strings were in place. It looked like it could need some tuning and then be fit to play. "I remember you once said you used to steal instruments from your father's basement and play whenever he was away," she said a bit shyly, afraid of how he would react. "I thought this might be something to spend your time with. So the days go by a bit faster."

For a moment he said nothing. Then, to her big surprise and relief, he smiled.

"How considerate of you."

-------

_Sometimes I wonder: If I had been around, would things have been different? Would she have chosen me in the end? After all, I had her for a while. I messed it up, true, but it might have been possible to fix. Right? _

_I guess I'll never know now._

-------

He couldn't tell how it happened. Somehow the little Weasley grew on him. He couldn't spend a day without her without going crazy wondering where she was and what she was doing.

At first he told himself it was only because he couldn't stand being alone. But shortly after he realised it was more than that.

His heart jumped out of joy every time he saw her and sometimes he couldn't think when she was standing or sitting too close to him. At some point, impossible to tell when, he had fallen in love with her. Head over heels in love.

---------

_I was also told she didn't know right away. That he loved her I mean. If it hadn't been for that letter she received she might have never found out. It was a letter I should have written. I letter declaring my eternal love for her, not his. A be__autifully composed love letter._

--------

"What's this?" she asked suddenly.

"What's what?" he asked. He was laying on his bed in the tiny little room while she was sitting on the windowsill next to the desk. His eyes widened out of panic when he saw the piece of paper in her hand. He was up faster than a bolt and nearly ripped the paper when taking it from her. "It's nothing..." he said in an attempt to shake it off. Of course he wasn't that lucky.

"It sure looked like something. Did you write it? Let me read it."

"No!" He sounded a bit harsher than he intended. "It's just some stuff I scribbled down." He quickly rolled the paper up in a ball.

Later that night, Ginny was so curious she couldn't sleep. She sneaked out of bed and into his room. She quickly found the paper ball and brought it back with her in bed where she could read it undisturbed.

The first thing he saw when he woke up the morning after was a smiling Ginny sitting next to him on the bed.

"What?" he asked grumpily.

"That must have been one of the cheesiest love letters I've ever seen." She continued before he had any chance to protest or explode in anger. "But I loved it." His furious expression softened somewhat. "More importantly: I love you too."

The last word was muffled by his lips.

-------

_She could have been mine if it hadn't been for that love letter she received. A love letter I should have written. Then she would be marrying me right now. In moment she would have been Mrs. Harry Potter. Should have been._

_Oh how I wish it was me standing up there in the aisle. _

_But it isn't my place. _

_It's Draco Malfoy's._


End file.
